h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Definitely one for the MMO gamers, this one!

Is it the Dirge chat in Trade channels in World of Warcraft? Is it the awful music people come up with in Lord of the Rings Online? Your favourite moment could even be a phrase or term used online (BoB knows there are too many to mention).

The floor is yours, O pasty faced gamers!

One from 15 years ago...

I was playing the original Doom in 1993 at lunchtime at work with a group of colleagues which included the IT networks manager. When he picked up the chainsaw, a bug in the software not only crashed the game, it brought down the company's Wide Area Network.

Finally acquiring 'Knights of the Round' in FFVII (I'd had to start the game from the beginning again as my then 7 year old son had started a new game over my 100+ hour game ) I thought I may as well try and get all the Summons. I even got Doomtrain (not that it was much use in the final battle )

Halo 3 multiplayer, a tight team doubles game. As I leap off a ledge, a sniper bullet skims past my head, so I twitch off a sticky grenade without thinking, looking or aiming. Said grenade bounces off a wall, sticks to the gun of the sniper (who's retreating round a corner) and ends his little reign of terror.

Ah, I remember us hacking the library network at college and trying not to shout out too much as we sat playing Doom while pretending to study

My current favourite moment is a World of Warcraft one. At Christmas time there are seasonal quests, with one item (preserved holly) giving you the ability to turn your mount into a reindeer. I'm currently having a lot of fun flying around in the height of summer on Rudolph, having saved mine

Hardly ever play online games (apart from a few months last year I've never the internet on at home) but I was at my brother's place once and he goaded me into playing the original Battle for Middle Earth online.

Needless to say, I was being trounced, mostly by my opponenents Nazgul but just at the last second I get Gandalf out, use Istari Light, kill the Nazgul, which levels Gandalf up sufficiently to use Word of Power, which wipes out the army attacking my base. A swift counter-attack later and I've won the game.

Tricky, has to be the first twenty minutes of Shadow of the Colossus. That's the only game I've ever felt compelled to show my mum.

Here are the runners up

Completing The lost levels, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Mario64 back to back and... in one sitting

When the Robot in Chrono Trigger gets beaten up by it's clones and finally killing the mother Computer, and just Chrono Trigger in general.

Naming the civilizations in Civilization II after art movements and at some point later receiving the notorious message “"We have no need for your useless Cubist maps"

Trick shots, in Mario Kart battles, such as bouncing a green off the end of a lane divider back into the adjacent lane or screech turning across the mouth of a lane and unleashing a red/green down it. Banana-ing anyone from a distance or getting "the vision" when you see the future. Once a friend got a bit confused and thought he was me, after I shot him he said "I was living as ya'lls! I thought I'd had!"

Beating people one handed on Street Fighter games (Alpha 2) using just Dragon punches and Hadookens.

Killing the first Kraken on The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Destroying the Death star on the first atari version of star wars when you get the "Great shot kid, that was one in a million" sample.

The Music from Carrier Command

None of those are MMOs of any sort but you didn't include that in the title so get down, chinny, clampedclampedclamped etc. Thank you.

Mine wasn't either. I don't care - I love me consoles.

Another one I thought of (there are several) Conker - Locked and Reloaded on XBox. When you left him alone for a bit he'd sit down and say 'Bored, bored, bordey bored de bored. Bored' We used to leave him alone a lot to hear him say that

Sega Rally and playing 2 player mode: one where you can play with a novice but they get upto a 20seconds head start. It meant you had to catch them up an everytime they got better you dropped the gap. Then there was the 2player mode where one of you had to get a certain amount of seconds in front of the other at a check point to win. When you have that gap on 1second and you are still playing after 30minutes and yours eyes have dried you know its a damn close race.

That first moment when you see the T-Rex coming out of the mist on TombRaider.

Playing two player split screen Syphon Filter using a signal splitter on to 2 TV screens. Covering one half with cardboard and hence not seeing ehat the other person is doing. Physically shaking after an hour due to the tension of not knowing if the git is creeping up behind you...net play 6 years before it ever happened!!!!

Playing on an Xbox 360 for one of the first times watching the intro to Bioshock and wondering when the game is going to start as you float in beautifully rendered water...only to realise you ARE playing the game.

Getting a US version of Tenchu 2 with the level editor and spending hours building levels that your mate then beats in 15minutes.

I could go on...

"Playing on an Xbox 360 for one of the first times watching the intro to Bioshock and wondering when the game is going to start as you float in beautifully rendered water...only to realise you ARE playing the game."

I did that too...

I had a similar moment for the 360 at a friend's house realizing a really massive accruement of zombies in Dead Rising was in game. An old tribal part of me thinks ripping out my own kidney and using it to break just one Xbox wouldn't be a waste but it's unfair to the developers. Poor tainted developers. Wibble.

On Warcraft2 the human troops if left standing (or repetedly clicked can't remember) would say ''Join the Navy' they said' etc in a very, very sarcastic way


"Grip the form baton...

... In this stance you channel the quiet dignity of a circus clown in a thunderstorm."

Warioware on't wii

When I was first able to pilot the craft in Virus for more than about two seconds without crashing into the ground. God that was hard. Shoulder to cry on anyone?

The music for Xenon II: megablast

Volcanoes on Populous

Godzilla on Simcity.

I love constantly clicking on random NPCs in World of Warcraft. They start out all nice and polite but get more and more annoyed them more you click on em

Getting a good score on my "insane stunt" in Grand Theft Auto: Feet elevation, No. spins, degrees inclination, etc.

Beating Fritz at chess.

(Wife) A new high score on a level in Katamari Damacy

(Wife) Age 20 in Wii Sports "Wii Age" section

Eve Online... flying as part of a fleet of over 200 people to conquer a station outpost that would become our alliance's new home.

Shadowbane... lots of stealing from unsuspecting players using my birdman thief.

Non-MMORPGs - Civilisation-related megalomania, completing X-COM Enemy Unknown for the first time, and nearly jumping out of my skin when a giant bear appeared from nowhere in Tenchu Stealth Assassins.

Revenge From Mars pinball multiball. Can't be beat.

B

Oh, and the music from Dr Mario when it crops up in Super Smash Bros. Don't know why.

B

I haven't played Civ for ages! Civ 2 is definitely my favourite. I used to spend hours cocking around with the program files

Attacking someone's base with an army of just hundreds and hundreds of dog units on Command and Conquer.

The creation of the word "hooning" to describe top speed flight in Sky Odyssey (Brilliant game, cover looks rubbish and it is usually £2.99 in bargain bins, do not be fooled, if you have a PS2 get it)

Not a favourite but still intense: when I realised I'd been playing Disgaea: Hour of Darkness for over 1000 hours.

The... "Hang on, the baddies are INVISIBLE!?!" moment in Killer 7

One shot kill with big heads multiplayer on Golden Eye and just quite a lot of that game.

Some of the more preposterous things that have happened in Worms games.

Finishing Cannon Fodder without losing any of my original team.

Getting stuck in a corner whilst a zombie very, very slowly comes to eat you in Alone in the Dark

Pod can pop

Was Gandhi unusually militaristic in CivII or was it my imagination?